2005: Blogged
My copy of 2005: Blogged arrived yesterday morning.
It’s a very nice object and not just because I’m in it, slipped in amongst all the quality, like a Sven Hassel in the Dickens section. I’m certainly a lot less sweary than I used to be, it would seem. I’m debating whether my grandmother gets a copy for Christmas (”Look Gran, here’s the bit where I say kids couldn’t give a flying fuck about what they eat”.)
The, erm, idiosyncratic presentation of Tim Worstall’s intros to each piece has already been noted. Having them in an uppercase faux dot-matrix font and between mock HTML tags (<ED></ED>) is probably meaningless to anybody other than geeks and I imagine sounded better in theory than in it looks in execution. And a (small) typo in one of my two pieces manages to reverse a point I was trying to make.
But that’s minor griping. The book has two indexes, one general and one by blog, which allows you to see who exactly’s in it (five mentions for Nosemonkey though? One to keep him quiet would have been enough). It was gratifying to see how many are on my blogroll and quite a few of those included that aren’t on it will be soon.
I was sorry to see that one or two people (among others) hadn’t made the cut but hopefully 2006: Blogged will rectify that.
The variety of bloggers represented is pretty impressive. The temptation for Tim could have been to go with what he knows. As a narrative of the past year it works as well. Structuring the book chronologically means that people will be inclined to read it from beginning to end rather than if the book had been arranged by, say, subject area.
It’s certainly better written and informed than one of those “I Love 19xx” shows (”Wasn’t Rhoobarb and Custard great?”) and a row of such books will look very nice on the bookshelf in a few years’ time, I reckon.
That really was an advertorial, wasn’t it?
Posted on November 23rd, 2005 at 9:34 am
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That really was an advertorial, wasn’t it?
Nah, because you didn’t direct people to the filthy shill button on the left of the screen to cross your palm with silver. Basic copywriting, no?
I wanted to use the election posters from Blimpish but we weren’t doing graphics. And Jim didn’t have a piece around the right date on a subject that wasn’t already covered. Balancing chronology, subject matter and a wide spread of bloggers made that inevitable really.
5 for Nosemonkey? Well, yes, but all five refer to the bombings.
And also, lest we forget, I am five times better than anyone else. At least.
And five times as modest.
5 for Nosemonkey?
Yeah, he needed some compensation for not being among “the most influential British bloggers”. No witty critic of the Blair era, he.
…still, does this mean he’s going to be insufferable when we meet next week?
THIS doesn’t mean I’ll be insufferable - I had plenty of other reasons already. (Not least a week of my downstairs neigbour being a twat combined with freezing weather, which has put me in a foul humour.)
But Roobarb and Custard was great….
Anyway, well done to Tim for producing the book and well done for you lot for getting in it. If I had twice the time I have and six times the inspiration and talent, I’d be in the next edition.
Yes as you say, the book’s damn good, so a big pat on the back to Tim.
But still, no Jim Bliss? No Backward Dave? No David Duff?? No USS Neverdock???
I would recommend something by that Rochenko fella from Smokewriting for next year’s publication. I’m sure he would have been in this year’s except for his temerity to stop blogging for months on end to do real grown up things like get a nice new job etc.
How does the print version deal with off-blog links then? Put them in parentheses? Actually, I suspect the answer I might get is “Buy it and find out”.
Seconded on Rochenko, he’s a top chap. Serves him right for trying to get his life on track. I’ve put my life and that of my kids in the crapper maintaining Chicken Yoghurt.
Hopefully Messrs Bliss and Backword will make it next year as well.
As for off-blog links…
You don’t want me to spoil it for you, do you?
Damn you all…I’m now going to have to fork out on a Rhubarb and Custard DVD (if one there be).
Those birds, they always cracked me up.
I always reckoned Boycie in “Only Fools and Horses” sounded like Custard the cat. Same sneering drawl.
(”Wasn’t Rhoobarb and Custard great?”) Not especially, but Sven Hassel’s fucking excellent when you’re 14..
I liked it a lot.
My bit was actually far better written grammatically than when I spat it on my blog. Made me look almost semi-literate.
Nice.
>> That really was an > advertorial, wasn’t it?